History

Since its origins in the wake of the Long Night to the present, eleven dynasties have ruled over the Empire. Some lasted no more than half a century, whereas others endured for seven hundred years. Some gave way to others peacefully, others in war; and on four ocassions, the end of a dynasty was followed by a period of anarchy and lawlessness when warlords and petty kings warred for supremacy, with the longest of these interregnums lasting more than a century.[1]

The Empire lives in a constant state of war against the Jogos Nhai, with many an imperial general and three God-Emperors have led armies across the plains to bring the nomads to heel, but such attempts seldom ended well and eventually the Jogos Nhai raids began anew, even when emperors compelled handfuls of jhats to vow them eternal fealty, as Jogos Nhai tended to flee rather than face armies in battle.[2]

During his long reign, forty-second scarlet emperorLo Han led three such invasions of the plains, yet by the time of his death the Jogos Nhai carried out bolder and more rapacious raids than when he began his reign. His successor, Lo Bu determined to end the threat of the nomads for all time. He assembled a mighty host, said to be three hundred thousand strong, and crossed the borders of the empire with slaughter as his only purpose. Tributes, hostages, oaths of fealty, or offerings of peace failed to sway him and his vast army swept the plains, leaving behind a burning wasteland.[2]

When the nomads resorted to their traditional tactic of melting away at the approach of the army, Lo Bu divided his host into thirteen smaller armies and sent them forth in all directions to hunt down the zorse-riders. History tells a million Jogos Nhai died at their hands.[2]

The rival clans of Jogos Nhai unified under jhattarZhea, who, in the period of two years isolated each of Lo Bu's thirteen armies, slew their scouts and foragers, starved them, denied them water, led them into wastelands and traps, thus destroying each army one by one. Finally, her riders fell on Lo Bu's own host and carried out a slaughter to terrible that every stream for twenty leagues around was choked in blood. Among the slain was Lo Bu himself, whose skull was stripped of flesh and dipped in gold, becoming Zhea's drinking cup.[2]